Doll or toy
Small sample: these figures describe only these 9 stories.
Basement door, a shared dream, and a slow-burning teddy bear in a country home
A caller who gives their name as [name withheld], from Dayton, Ohio, describes several “spooky moments” in a country home that the caller and their husband bought in the mid-1970s. A basement door opened by itself each evening at supper time. Their son said something was coming into his room. One night the caller and their husband reportedly shared the same vision of their daughter being raised out of bed and slammed to the floor. They found the daughter asleep and unharmed on the floor. They concluded there was an entity in the home. They blessed the rooms with holy water and burned a handmade teddy bear the caller distrusted, which, the caller says, took hours to burn. The caller says they left the house with their children a few months later.
Dolls moved overnight in an antique shop in a former Kansas City orphanage
An unnamed caller tells Art Bell that they and their wife bought an old house, restored it, and opened an antique store. Children’s toys and dolls were repeatedly found off their shelves in the morning. The caller reports a child crying at night and a burned doll found behind a knocked-out wall. The activity stopped while the doll was on display and started again after the doll was sold. The caller says they are now trying to buy it back.
Doll moves its arm; a dark figure at the mother's bedside
A caller named [name withheld], from Huntsville, Alabama, tells Art Bell that a large childhood doll they kept in their bedroom raised and lowered its arm while they read. They say the doll was passed to their mother. Their mother then reported a dark figure beside her bed and a potted plant that shook by itself. The doll was eventually put out with the trash.
Talking toys with no batteries in a cousin’s nursery; an unpopular upstairs room
A caller who gives her first name as “Kila” (the host repeats it as “Keela”) and her location as Wartburg, Tennessee, tells Art Bell about a cousin’s nursery. She says two talking toys were heard talking to each other there, with their switch off and no batteries in them. She sets this against her childhood home, where an upstairs room she eventually occupied was said by visiting relatives to be troubling. She says her cousin moved out of the house not long afterward.
Letter: Discarded stuffed Ewok and scratching sounds from a bedroom closet
A letter read on air tells of a stuffed Ewok toy found in an outside trash can, brought back into the house, and placed in the writer's mother's bedroom closet. The mother reportedly woke that night to rustling and scratching from the closet. The toy was returned to the trash can the next morning. The writer closes with a joking remark about not keeping such things in closets.
Santa head toy activates and phone rings in a closed San Diego restaurant
A caller tells Art Bell about a night a few years earlier when they worked a graveyard shift at a San Diego hotel that shared its property with a restaurant. The caller says an internal phone rang from the closed restaurant with nobody on the other end. The caller also says the lone cleaner ran out saying a clap-activated Santa Claus head toy had sounded on its own. The caller ends by calling it [quote withheld] they had almost forgotten.
Action figure falls from shelf into an open drawer while reading The Exorcist
A caller who identifies themselves as [name withheld] tells Art Bell that about ten years earlier, while they were reading The Exorcist at midnight in their apartment, a Morbius the Living Vampire action figure fell from a shelf above their dresser into an open drawer of underwear. Only that figure fell. The caller says it was “kind of weird” and wonders whether spirits were trying to say something or be funny. The caller reports nothing further. The host jokes about it and takes the next call.
A keychain squeeze toy sounding twice by itself on Halloween night
A caller the host addresses as “[name withheld]” says that on one Halloween night a squeeze toy on their brother’s mother-in-law’s keychain sounded by itself across the room. It says “I love chocolate” when pressed. It then sounded a second time by itself just after they had squeezed it and sat back down. They describe being startled but call the whole thing [quote withheld] The host thanks them and moves on.
Burning smell, figure at corner of bed, and a toy from the other side
A caller, addressed by the host as “[name withheld]?” in a context line, tells of lifelong encounters with spirits and one night when a recurring burning-wood smell woke them. The caller reports waking suddenly, colliding with a figure at the corner of their bed, seeing its eyes and open mouth, and being shown a toy the figure claimed as its own, by telepathy. The host stops the story for a break before they can describe the toy.